With technology advancing right in front of us, e-mails are becoming more popular than ever as a form of communication. When e-mails first began, many people used short form versions of words to be able to communicate to each other, while some even have that odd sideways happy face or any other emoticon at the end to show their emotions. Even though that this still occurs within the business world, the communication channel continues to mature every year and with that, messages are beginning to be more professional and more grammatically correct. Today, it is estimated that over 85 billion e-mails are sent everyday around the world, and that people are more likely to e-mail than to use the telephone if chosen to.
There is one disadvantage that comes with writing e-mails instead of speaking over the phone. Whomever the e-mail went to when you were sending it, it is stored on their computer. Even if the person on the other end deletes the message, it can still end up being saved from the hard-drive of the computer itself. An example of this involved a long-term British Columbia politician, James Coleridge. He ended up being forced to resign his position for engaging in "deceit and lies" during an election campaign. Some people don't even end up realizing that the receiver could simply forward the message to just a couple of their friends, and then they send it to a couple of their friends, and this cycle just continues on and then the message could end up going world-wide at one point if the cycle never stops.
Personally, I take the time to think out the e-mails I send before I hit the "send" button. Especially in the workplace where I currently work at, I occasionally forward e-mails between customers to let them gather information on products the company carries and the value of them. You have to communicate in a professional manner in order for the customer to feel like they are being treated with respect. This involves anyone else in the workplace too. If you're in an office and you're communicating back and forth with other employees working there or even your boss for that matter, you want to be treated with respect right? Well proper communication will allow that to happen, seeing as there aren't any emoticons or "lol"'s within the message. That person will have the chance to give that respect back to you in the reply they send to you.
With proper grammar and professionalism in e-mails, communication between people will become more understandable, and also allow more respect within the workplace between employees and their boss and/or manager. Do you agree?
You have well exlpained the importance of e-mails particularly in workplaces. Sharing any business information with your colleages is a serious matter. We need to behave professionally while communicating with co-workers and customers.
ReplyDeleteSince written communication misses out on the advantages of body language, tone of voice, etc it is very important that professional emails are grammatically well written.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I adhere to the above rule only in the business environment and in professional write-ups. In my personal life, I tend to chat concurrently to a number of people. Writing statements in correct grammar usually wastes my time, as such, in friendly mails and casual chats I prefer using short forms and agreed-upon abbreviations.
The downside of it is, I absolutely 'have to’ read my professional emails twice before hitting the send button.
I think what Cheryl said makes sense. I agree that proper grammar and spelling can show respect. You have to be professional when using email in business, but I don’t think you have to be that formal in some casual emails to friends. My opinion is as long as you can express your points and the receiver understands we don’t need to be that formal on casual emails.
ReplyDeleteThe one benefit of actually writing in a professional manner even between friends is the fact that you get used to writing e-mails, instant messages, etc, with proper grammar and punctuality and then you don't end up having many errors within your writing if you were ever to write something for a business.
ReplyDeleteAnd regarding the comment on chatting/e-mailing friends, it can depend on the situation I guess. If it's to prove a point logically then you wouldn't typically wanna use short-from abbreviations or emoticons, but if it is just a casual conversation, then you don't have to be 100% professional.
But then again, it's always up to that individual to choose how they want to act, either in a professional manner or a casual manner.
I agree with Cheryl. By using a professional writing in the business environment, information can be delivered correctly without mistakes and also as Yaqin said that can show more respect to others.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Aaron on the benefit of writing with proper grammar and punctuality even between friends. It is a good practice, I'm doing that also with text messaging and it is not easy when you need a quick response.
ReplyDeleteAs a society we need to improve the quality of the information we provide and receive. This includes proper punctuation and grammar. Occasional mistakes are acceptable but if begin to adopt a custom of shortening phrases and using abbreviations, we not only impede the movement of information but we also begin to destroy our own language. Language is culture, and if we begin to intentionally express ourselves incorrectly, then we'll turn into nomads.
ReplyDeleteIt depends on to whom you write. If you send emails to your close friends, I don’t think that professionalism is that important unless you really want to. But when it comes to sending an email to someone you do not know or in the business world, then I totally agree with you. Making a phone call is as important as sending an email. Whenever you make a phone call to big companies, they also record your voice.
ReplyDeleteGoing along with Daejoong's point in saying it depends on who you write to, you also have to consider the cultural differences between people. You can't go using sports references if the person you're talking to doesn't even understand them. You want to make sure that you respect them for who they are, what they believe in, and also their cultural background in order for them to feel like they're welcomed into your society.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with Daejoong and Aaron when talking about who you're writing too. I think one of the benifets is that you have the time to think about what you're saying. Unlike communication on the phone or in person you can't jump back and edit what you said. We're given the oppertunity with e-mails and text messages to think and proof read what we're sending out... it's a shame most of us don't.
ReplyDeleteSerdar made a good point that language is culture. Everyone has the responsibility to keep the culture. So be professional and serious on language when it is necessary. We do this to keep our culture and pass it down to generations.
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ReplyDeleteE-mails give the opportunity to stop and think about what you write but at the same time, it can also allow one to act as impulsively and recklessly as he or she wants to from the safety of the home or the office. There are things we simply can't tell people face to face and emails can sometimes turn into a collection of repressed emotions that can potentially break a man or woman's professional reputation.
ReplyDeleteThere are many things to take into consideration when writing an e-mail. First off, you want to make sure that you create a rough draft of what you are going to send. This ensures you that you don't accidently hit the send button, or if your computer happens to shut down, you don't lose all the information you were preparing to send. In relation to this, you also don't want to send anything that will be publicized, meaning if it's meant to just be between two individuals, it should be done in person rather than an e-mail. Second of all, you want to make sure that you aren't responding to an e-mail when your emotions are all mixed up. At one moment during the process of writing the e-mail, you could be all happy and cheerful, and then the next minute, you're angry and mad about anything and everything. This is what can cost someone their job, especially if the e-mail happens to reach your employer.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, I will stretch out the point that you have to consider everyone's culture. If people are still trying to learn our language, or even if we ourselves are trying to learn a different language, it's always a smart thing to be precise writing an e-mail. This means no slang terms, figurative clichés, or sports references in your e-mails. Although you might know what they mean, the other person who is receiving the e-mail may not understand it at all.
Hi, Aaron
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is important to take cultural differences into account.
Aaron, I do agree that we should write a rough draft as we learnt that in class today. However, I think in a situation such as an IT company where in you are sending roughly 15 emails a day, it may not be feasible to write rough drafts for each of them.
ReplyDeleteWhat I normally do when writing an email, is to first complete the body and only then enter the email address. A mail without an email ID will not be sent even by mistake and if your computer hangs then you may just find your unfinished email saved in your drafts!
That's true Cheryl!
ReplyDeleteIn like hotmail and stuff, you can type out what you wanna say, and after every couple of minutes it saves into the drafts. Much better than writing rough drafts!
Just need to watch your spelling and grammatical errors when doing so.
From an efficiency perspective, it is not feasible to write a rough draft before typing an email. Other than type an email body part before type the email address to avoid sending mistake, I think we should develop a precise writing habit that enables us to write qualified emails at any time at work.
ReplyDeleteIn order for customers to buy your products or use your services, they must have confidence in your abilities. Using proper grammar is important to make a positive impression.
ReplyDeleteThis is my experience when I was in Korea. I used to work for the company in the late 1990 to 2006. The first year when I worked for my company, the email was just getting started to public. Before email was invented, telephone or traditional mails were the methods that companies communicate with customers. To get in touch with customers, the employees should either send regular mails or make phone calls. It was kind of tedious jobs. Emails help every company develop and use information system and achieve their goals and objectives much faster. Emails increase the productivity of workers who works in the office by interconnecting each employee to share what they have. Computer based management information systems is much faster than traditional management information systems because every step we take is computerized.
ReplyDeleteEmails have now become an imprtant method of communication. Even in our daily life if we analyse our one day activities, we come to know that we spend more time in communiting through emails or social sites and less time though taking with eachother. Its the miracle of science that with a computer on a desk in a small room we are communting with a number of people. Have you ever counted the exact number of people we daily communicate. Actually a lot of communication with so many people a day has made a man/women smartter than ever.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Serdar's comment on how our language is our culture...At first it seems okay to be professional when e-mailing for business and not when making small talk with friends however these little things can really change our language -> our culture!
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Khalid, since e-mails have become such an important method of communication that it is a part of our daily lives. It helps us to stay social with friends, family, co-workers, etc and updated.